My adventures in food, fitness, mommyhood, & everything in between

WIAW #85: I <3 Summer Foods

Yesterday was a great one in the food department. A bunch of my meals and snacks were all “summery”, and summer foods are my favorite! Smoothies, cereal, fruit, salads… Mmm so good! Let’s take a look at what I inhaled ate throughout the day in honor of the fabulous What I Ate Wednesday (WIAW).

breakfast

Breakfast was a smoothie made with half of a frozen banana, frozen mixed fruit (strawberries, pineapple, mangos, peaches), a handful of spinach, a pineapple Greek yogurt, and some unsweetened vanilla almond milk. I can’t remember the last time I had a smoothie for breakfast and it was SO good!

I also had a piece of wheat toast topped with crunchy peanut butter and strawberry jam. Never does it get old!

mid morning snack

A small ramekin of trail mix was my snack of choice! I’m trying to keep my portions a little more in check with this stuff because I can easily eat half the bag in one sitting if I’m not careful. Putting it in a ramekin definitely helped!

lunch

I had a MorningStar Farms black bean veggie burger atop a bed of spinach (topped with ketchup, obviously), a hard boiled egg, and some applesauce. No photo… I was in a rush.

mid afternoon snack

I was starving by the time 3 PM rolled around, so I poured myself a big bowl of cereal with a sliced banana and almond milk.

dinner

Our dinner was Coconut Ginger Curry Brown Rice Bowls, except I omitted the ginger since we’re not huge ginger fans over here. It wasn’t on our meal plan for the week, but I realized I never used up the ingredients for it a couple weeks ago for whatever reason. It sounded good so I went for it, and it was good indeed!

evening snack

I wanted ice cream in a bad way last night, so I ended up going for a mug of chocolate ice cream with a spoonful of peanut butter. Chocolate ice cream isn’t my favorite, but it’s all we had, and I was a little desperate. Hunter had his two month shots yesterday, and this was more for emotional comfort than anything. I know, I know, emotional eating is a no-no, but it just had to happen last night. It was a rough day.

Summer foods = YUM. Just another one of the many reasons I adore summer time!

**Note: I know I’ll get questions about this, so I thought I’d let you know that after eliminating dairy for about a month, I’m slowly trying to reintroduce it back into my diet per Hunter’s doctor’s recommendation. I’m starting to prefer unsweetened vanilla almond milk over regular milk, so I may just continue to buy that. However, I have occasionally been enjoying some Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, and ice cream, and boy is it good! So far, Hunter has been responding well to it, so we’ll see how it goes!

What are some of your favorite summer foods?Do you have a difficult time with portion control when it comes to any particular foods? Do you prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream?

Ashley…it breaks my heart that you’re not huge ginger fans. I think we can still be friends though haha. Hubby LOVES ginger and I do too now!! That smoothie sounds so delicious!! I better go eat now because I’m sitting here STARVING!

I’m a vanilla person as well when it comes to ice cream, and I think emotional eating every once in a while is fine! Food isn’t JUST fuel, it plays a much bigger role in our lives, like celebrations and family, and sometimes it’s there for comfort too, it’s when it becomes a huge way that you deal with and hide emotions that it’s a problem! (lol things I learned from the IE challenge…)

I couldn’t agree more! As you know, I’ve struggled with emotional eating in the past, so it was good for me to be aware of it, accept it, and enjoy my mug of ice cream without eating the entire carton!

Oh I realize that… I didn’t beat myself about it. It was just something I noticed as I dished out my ice cream. It’s been a struggle of mine in the past, so I think it’s good for me to be aware of it so I don’t eat the whole tub of ice cream.

Why have I never had peanut butter with chocolate ice cream before? That sounds like an amazing combination! That curry also looks wonderful, I have made curries for the last two nights, I love Indian flavored foods.

I sometimes have portion control with cereal. And definitely with sweets, like ice cream. My husband is the funniest with his cereal portions. He easily eats 4-5 “servings” of Life cereal in a sitting. Which is why we go through about 3 boxes a week!

When I was younger I was definitely a vanilla hater, wouldn’t tough it unless I had a bottle of Hershey’s syrup to mix in it and mask it completely as faux-chocolate. But my taste has changed dramatically over the past few years and now I loooove vanilla! It’s so light and the flavor is perfect, plus it goes with anything ever. Fruit, sprinkles, cookies, cereal, cinnamon, peanut butter…. Ahhhhhhh

Summer foods? I’m loving fresh fruits like peaches, apples, and oranges! I have had all three sporadically this week, lol.

Def. have a difficult time with portion control of crunchy potato chips! So, I’m sure to only give myself a serving or two from the bag. I could easily go through 3/4th of a big bag of them, if not. :-p

Vanilla ice cream all the way! Never been much of a fan of chocolate, or any other flavor, for that matter. Weird.

Smoothies definitely start to make a regular appearance for me in warmer temperatures. And fresh fruit – so close to berry season here! Should start seeing the local stuff pop up any minute now.

I’m usually ok with portion control, but trail mix and unwrapped chocolate (like the bag of chocolate covered raisins I currently have in my fridge) are troublemakers for me. I use a little dish as well, which helps a lot!

I love chocolate everything, except for ice cream…would much rather go for vanilla!

It’s typically not a good habit to pick up. I have a history of binge/restricting which often times was a result of emotional eating, so I try not to associate my emotions with food the best I can. I recognize it happens every so often, but try not to make a regular practice of it.

But isn’t all eating emotional? How on earth is it possible to eat un-emotionally? Emotions are how we make decisions, and it’s how we know which foods we enjoy, which flavours and textures we like, etc. Eating isn’t just about fuelling our bodies, and it never can be, because we are emotional beings. Eating (variably) about pleasure, comfort, socialising, etc, and sadly also often about punishment (think restriction and deliberate deprivation). And there’s another way of looking at “bingeing” following a period of restrictive eating, and that is as “reactive” eating, i.e a wholly normal and indeed healthy response to starvation (because your body is doing what it needs to keep you alive). This association between food and “guilt”, and between eating and “weakness”, that has developed in Western culture since the late 20th century makes me so sad, and it just keeps getting perpetuated by all of us, through our everyday language, the way we narrate our eating habits (e.g. saying “oh, I really shouldn’t” in response to the offer of a piece of cake, or talking about being “naughty” when having a bar of chocolate, etc) And it’s a feminist issue too, because it’s mainly women who both participate in and are targeted by these kinds of messages. If we give in to our “cravings” we’re “weak”, and we can’t get “fat” because we have to look a certain way to be considered “attractive” by mainstream culture (and, consequently, ourselves). You might find it inappropriate of me to invade your blog like this with what is clearly a political message, but if this makes even just one of your readers think twice about judging themselves (and others) over what they eat, well, that’s a step in the right direction as far as I’m concerned. If you decide to let this message through, of course.

I’ll gladly let it through because I totally agree with you! I give in to my cravings and feed my body what it wants. BUT I haven’t always been that way. Knowing myself and my past, running to a bowl of ice cream for comfort often times led to lack of self control and bingeing. So I try to keep my emotional eating in check because of that. If I didn’t ever have binge-like tendencies, it wouldn’t be a concern at all for me. Trust me, I am all about EATING and eating proudly. I love food and I love to eat! I don’t want to get in a huge debate about all of this… I think you may have misunderstood where I was coming from.

I would suggest you go back to look at some of my recent WIAW posts… You’ll see that I do enjoy sweets and such simply because I want them. But this time I was reaching for a bowl of ice cream that I normally wouldn’t even go for solely because I was stressed and sad. Those are the type of habits I don’t like to pick up… I want to enjoy a bowl of ice cream that I truly want – not just because I’m sad/stressed/depressed/etc.

Monthly Archive

Search By Category!

Recent Posts

Disclaimer

My Food 'N' Fitness Diaries is a for-profit blog, meaning that I occasionally work with brands who compensate me for my time. All products or services that I endorse or review are products or services that I would use even without being paid, and my opinions are my own. There may also be occasional affiliate or referral links used. This is in no way affects the price you pay for the product.
I am NOT a Registered Dietician or doctor. My blog posts are strictly based on my own knowledge, opinions, and personal experience, Consult a healthcare expert for specific medical needs and/or advice.